Full Circle (2 page)

Louisa was the only person to alight at Lexleigh Halt. The train hissed and puffed as though it objected to being slowed to a shuddering standstill in a cloud of steam. The moment she slammed the door closed it started forward again, leaving her alone on the platform. There had been something unreal about the whole day, but it was in those first seconds since arriving in Lexleigh that her change in circumstances came home to her. Instinctively she straightened her already straight shoulders, raised her chin, breathed the lingering sooty smell from the departing train in deeply and felt an unfamiliar sense of release. But release from what? She'd been a free agent for years, leaving home with no objection from her parents as soon as she'd earned enough to pay for a bedsit near where she worked. From there she had moved to a comfortable flat in a converted house in a good residential road. Here she was, a qualified accountant, thirty years of age and capable of earning a comfortable living, so where was the logic in this sudden excitement? The house would probably be a country cottage with no facilities, and the car years old and something she would have to pay to have removed. Aunt Violet was her father's younger sister by almost ten years and he was seventy-five years old. But that could never have been a forty-year-old woman who had turned cartwheels on the lawn.

Her thoughts moving on those lines, she left the railway halt and started along the road, passing one or two cottages (yes, that would be the sort of place she had inherited) and then a few shops. It couldn't be much further, so she crossed to the right-hand side of the road ready to look for the name on a gate. She could see a terrace of cottages on the left side but on the right was only one solid, detached building backing on to farmland. It must be further on than that.

But as she came level with the gate she saw on it the words ‘The Retreat'.

Any stranger watching her might have assumed she knew exactly where she was going, as she seemed to look neither right nor left as she opened the gate. But in fact she had noticed the movement of the curtains in the middle cottage opposite and knew her arrival was causing interest as she took the key out of her handbag and walked to the front door. She would have liked to have stood outside and looked at the house, but her natural show of assurance wouldn't allow her to let anyone see her hesitate. So, just as if this was what she did every day of the week, she opened the front door and went inside.

It was already nearly four o'clock and at the end of March the days were short. Louisa stood in the hallway just inside the front door of the house that was hers, surprising herself that she desperately wanted to bring alive her memories of her aunt. But how could she when she was so far removed from the young child who had believed she would never forget the magic of the few hours they had been together? It was all so long ago that it was like looking at a life unconnected with the woman she had become. When had the will been written? Surely years ago; nothing had changed in Violet's life in recent times, as far as she was aware. But how sad; how could such a vibrant woman have had no one closer than a niece she'd seen only once, more than a quarter of a century ago?

From room to room she went, increasingly surprised by what she saw. The sitting room was well furnished and comfortable, the kitchen obviously refurbished much more recently than the house had been built. Upstairs the bathroom told the same story. Perhaps Aunt Violet had won money on the football pools, for this house had been brought up to date with small regard to cost. Two of the three bedrooms weren't fully furnished, but there was nothing inferior about the rugs or curtains. On opening a wardrobe Louisa found clothes that jogged her memory as she recalled those pretty knickers that had been given an airing as her aunt had turned her cartwheels. She wished she could remember her better, but all she knew was that she had been like someone out of a book, not quite real and different from all her mother's friends. And the garments hanging in the wardrobe weren't for a woman of her mother's age; indeed, they were what she would wear herself. All that I possess I leave to my niece, Louisa Ann Harding. Could she really have been in her sixties?

The third bedroom looked out across the fields at the back of the house and here the bed was made up. This is where Violet must have slept the night before she was killed. Louisa sat on the edge of the bed and found herself taking the nightdress from its case, as if that would give her a clue to the woman who must have hung on to the memory of that magic afternoon. It was chiffon – delicate black chiffon with the lingering aroma of perfume. An inner voice warned her that she must watch the time; she was only here to inspect the state of the house and meant to catch the train back to the main line in Gloucester at quarter past six. Yes, this was a good room; she forced herself to see it as it might impress a perspective purchaser. It would fall to her to arrange for the furniture to be taken to an auction house so she must get some idea of what would be involved. Without a backward glance she left the bedroom and went back down the stairs. Allowing herself no time for daydreaming, it was Miss Louisa Harding, chartered accountant, who glanced around the ‘lived-in' kitchen, the small workroom furnished with a table, three chairs, a bookcase and a treadle sewing machine. Violet must have had a well-paid job for her to maintain a house like this. If only it weren't so far from Reading it would make a lovely retreat for weekends … The first stab of temptation. But, always sensible and practical, she trod it down. How still it was here, still and silent; the very atmosphere gave her a feeling of unreality. Then something happened, something she couldn't explain even to herself. It was as if, just for a moment, she felt Violet's presence close to her. Still there was no clear picture of her, but she was conscious just as she had been on that long ago afternoon of what at four years old she had thought of as magic. What she wasn't prepared for was a strange sensation that in this one-eyed village, as she thought of it, she could break free. But that was nonsense; she hadn't worked all these years to be pulled off track by the sentimental memories of a four-year-old. Think of the salary she earned; think of the security of being qualified to do the job she had chosen. Why had she chosen it? No, that was a question she couldn't answer, for in truth she had drifted into it, having taken a job as a junior clerk in a firm of accountants where it hadn't been in her nature to remain at everyone's beck and call, making the tea and coffee, running errands, stamping the mail and taking it to the post office on the way home. She had been determined to climb the ladder. But where had it got her? Where could it ever get her? Was she to spend her life in that office with nothing better to see out of the window than a wall? Violet's happy laugh echoed down the years.

Soon she would have to start walking back to the station. Or ought she to stay here for the weekend, sleep in Violet's bed and while she was in Gloucester on Monday morning go to one of the estate agents the solicitor had recommended? Yes, that's what she would do. She would phone the office on Monday and explain, saying she would be back the next day. She could try to get the house clearance people to come on Monday afternoon, she decided, not anticipating any stumbling blocks. Just one day, that's all she needed. So instead of going into that relaxing sitting room to start making a list of the furniture to be sold, she turned back into the workroom, again drawn to the window. The long view, the expanse of winter-pale sky, the distant sound of a cow lowing and the croaking of rooks high in nearby elm trees made this a different world from the hubbub of town.

It was a moment that would stay with her through the years, whatever the outcome of her sudden decision, a decision that took her by surprise and left her absolutely certain that what she was about to do was right. She wished she could tell Violet. But perhaps she knew; perhaps she had planned it when she wrote her will.

Hunting in the bureau, Louisa found a writing pad and envelopes then, drawing a chair to the table, she took her fountain pen from her bag and started to write.

With the envelope sealed and addressed, she took a book of stamps from her handbag and with habitual meticulous precision attached one to the top right-hand corner. There! It was done! The voice of conscience whispered that she was crazy. Her working environment was depressingly dull but it was safe and her future secure month after month, year after year.

She started to laugh, ‘Aunt Violet,' the words tumbling out and mingling with laughter, ‘next thing you'll have me turning cartwheels. And why not? Just look at it out there, the big clear winter sky, the stillness, no Saturday afternoon shoppers pushing along the crowded pavement in Broad Street looking as though they carried the cares of the world.' She stopped speaking her thoughts aloud, but they still filled her mind. She'd show this male-dominated business world that she could work independently. For surely at the back of her discontent was the certainty that for her there would be no offer of a partnership in the firm, an established accountancy business where the partners named on the letter-headed paper were all male. Her qualifications were as high as any but she was a woman in a man's world.

Perhaps so far out of town there wouldn't be an evening collection from the post box she had noticed as she walked through the village but, even if her letter had to sit there until the next day, Sunday, or even the whole weekend, her decision was made, and never in her life had she experienced such a feeling of freedom. Was that the message Aunt Violet was sending her with her legacy?

Locking the front door behind her and standing back to survey the house, she saw it in a new light from when she'd arrived not much more than an hour before. In her contract she had to give three months' notice so it would be late June before she could move. But there would be weekends; for now that this was where life was taking her it would be worth spending Saturday afternoon travelling here and Sunday evening returning. Three months in which to set the course for her future. After the end of June there would be no monthly salary cheque but she had always been prudent and over the last five years had managed to save. Add to that the money she was inheriting and she ought to be able to live and pay her household expenses as she built up a clientele. She saw no problems and if, somewhere deep in her mind, was the acceptance that her decision was foolhardy, she chose to ignore the warning voice. The Louisa Harding who had lived such a narrow, dull life and worked so hard for her qualifications would never leap before she looked. And that was what made what she intended to do all the more exciting and challenging. Her parents would never understand; in fact, that her plan had come about because she was moving into Violet's home would make them prophesy doom. She chuckled, remembering her aunt. In truth, she couldn't imagine her face; the memory of her went no further than what she was wearing – clothes so different from those of the women she was used to seeing. What was clear was more important than appearance: it was the spirit that told of a joy in living. And she would find that same joy; in fact, as she'd walked through the house she had felt it building in her even before she understood the message it was conveying.

So deep in her own thoughts was she that she opened the gate and stepped on to the narrow pavement hardly aware of what she did. The young girl walking past tried to avoid the collision but it was too late.

‘I'm so sorry.' Louisa put out a hand to steady her as she almost lost her balance. ‘I was miles away. I didn't hurt you, did I?' What an enchantingly lovely girl she was, with her honey-brown hair framing a face of perfect symmetry. When she replied with a smile that lit her wide, dark blue eyes, a dimple appeared in each cheek.

‘No, I'm OK. I saw you earlier on when my husband and I were driving up to the farm. You were just opening the front door to go in. Are you from an estate agent or are you thinking of buying the house? I do hope you are. It would be so much nicer for Dad to have someone there, someone young and cheerful.'

‘Your father? Is he a neighbour?'

‘My husband's father, Mr Carter. He owns Ridgeway Farm. They grow fruit and veg, not cows and things. The house you've just come from used to belong to it – one of the managers lived there, I think. But Dad got rid of it and the land that goes with it.'

‘Did you know the lady he sold it to?'

‘No, only that Leo said it was a woman on her own. It's Dad I worry about because Leo and I live miles away. I love it here; perhaps that's because it was where Leo was brought up. It's one of those places where everyone knows everyone. Do you come from Gloucester, or are you from an estate agent nearer?'

They were both going in the same direction so they had automatically started to walk together.

‘No, I'm from Reading, but I've decided to move here. It'll be a while before I can actually move in, and anyway, I have to give three months' notice at work. This is it, this is my notice.' She waved the envelope in front of them. ‘Decision made. I'm not giving myself the chance to have second thoughts.' It surprised her to find herself talking so freely to the pretty stranger; it must be something to do with her new-found freedom.

‘That's wonderful. When you meet Dad you'll love him. It's so sad for him now that he's alone. Leo's mum died quite suddenly very soon after we were married and they'd been together for ages. Leo is thirty-eight and his elder brother David is nearly forty so that shows you what a long time. When we arrived this afternoon Dad was so near to crying that he could hardly talk. I wish we were nearer but Leo works in the family business in Birmingham and it's too far from here. We can't keep coming every weekend when I get huge. I'm having a baby, you see. Do I show? Could you tell?' She asked the question hopefully. What a child she seemed. Looking at her, Louisa would be amazed if she had yet reached twenty. It was hard to imagine she had a husband not far off forty. Then, leaping from one thing to the next, the girl chattered on: ‘You don't wear a ring; I noticed when you came charging out of the gate, but you're older than I am and must have had lots of experience. And it's so good to have a woman to talk to. There was no one of my age in the boring office where I worked before I was married.'